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Letters to the Editor : What trade talks and protests were all about 12/13/99 Postnet.com READING the Dec. 5 front-page article on the World Trade Organization talks in Seattle would lead one to believe that genetically modified crops and food were the major stumbling block of the meeting. Genetic engineering of crops was only one among a multitude of issues. It was barely mentioned in most other news accounts. The collapse of the talks was due to longtime trade issues, primarily the elimination of subsidies for farmers and the use of laws to prevent below-cost dumping of goods in foreign ...

WTO to Bridge Communication Gap between Taiwan And Mainland: Scholar Taipei, Dec. 12 (CNA) Professor Chang Lin-cheng of National Taiwan University said she expects that frozen relations between Taiwan and mainland China will start thawing after the two sides join the World Trade Organization (WTO). The world trade regulatory body is expected to build a bridge of communication between the two sides across the Taiwan Strait, Chang said, explaining that under the WTO framework, Taiwan and the mainland can start their contact by opening negotiations on economic disputes. If the talks proceed in a smooth manner and lead to good ...

82% of People in Favor of Long-Range Ground-To-Ground Missiles: Poll Taipei, Dec. 12 (CNA) An overwhelming majority of the people of Taiwan are in favor of Vice President Lien Chan's proposal to develop long-range ground-to-ground missiles, a recent poll showed on Sunday. In the poll conducted by the Public Opinion Association of the Republic of China, 82 percent of those interviewed said they are supportive of Lien's proposal, while only 9.8 percent said they do not support the proposal, and 8.2 percent said they were unaware of it. The public was also asked about Lien's proposal to visit the mainland ...

The Republican Party shocked the political world in 1994 by picking up fifty-four seats and winning the majority of the House of Representatives after forty years of Democrat control. The GOP has held the majority now for three election cycles. Hopes to make it four, however, are dimming. Perhaps the biggest error Republicans in Congress have made (there have been so many that it's hard to settle on just one) is never accurately understanding how they won control in the first place. In 1993, newly-elected Demo-crat President Bill Clinton startled much of the country by governing from the far ...

THE Board of Education is starting to make organized crime look like a Tupperware party. The Post's Sunday story "Dead Kids Learning" is dramatically reminiscent of another era. And that was when Tammany Hall or Cook County in Chicago during Capone's day went to headstones in the cemetery to get voters. But just as disturbing was the board's gratuitous attitude toward the revelations of the Moreland Act Commission. The fact that millions of dollars are being paid out for nonexistent students seemed to give Board of Education spokesperson Karen Crowe more anger over the news than about the facts that ...

Published 12/13/99 Y2K currency strategy . . . just in case By Jude Wanniski As 1999 rolls into 2000, the world’s interconnected computers may have difficulty keeping up with a trillion debits and credits in 180 different currencies. Thirty years ago last September, Robert Mundell observed that “The world is moving toward a floating regime. The experience will be so painful that by 1980 it will begin moving back toward fixity.” Professor Mundell, then at Queens College in Ontario, now our newest Nobel Laureate in economics, of course was discussing the international monetary system. It was 1969, and at a ...

Financing China’s Red Army A Washington Times commentary Beijing is using U.S. capital markets to finance its military modernization. Rep. Chris Cox has said Americans who buy Chinese securities without adequate disclosure “are essentially lending money to the communist government of China.” The spotlight on the World Trade Organization and the eagerness of the Beijing government to join it brings to mind another kind of trade with communist China — the sale of stocks and bonds in Chinese government-owned companies for U.S. dollars. Roger Robinson, a member of the National Security Council staff in the Reagan administration who now chairs ...

There is an all-out drive to rush the Juvenile Justice bill, with its Senate-passed gun provisions -- and possibly more -- through the House the week of June 14-18. Up until the day Congress recessed for Memorial Day week, May 27, House Democrats were pushing to put a gun bill on President Clintonþs desk by Memorial Day -- "as a memorial to the children killed at Columbine High School." That same day, the House Crime Subcommittee was holding hearings on gun legislation at which NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre specifically endorsed background checks on private transfers at gun ...

Focus on race not working for Bradley By Andrew Cain THE WASHINGTON TIMES Bill Bradley has made race relations the centerpiece of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet Vice President Al Gore holds a commanding lead among black voters six weeks before the first voting of campaign 2000. Bill Bradley has made race relations the centerpiece of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet Vice President Al Gore holds a commanding lead among black voters six weeks before the first voting of campaign 2000. Mr. Gore’s campaign believes the support of black voters may make a decisive ...

ROSIE O'Donnell, give me a call. I can tell you what it's like to be homeless. I can tell you why requiring able-bodied people to work is being proposed in New York City. It is sensible and compassionate. See, Rosie, I've been to a place few men have gone -- rock bottom. I've done what too few homeless men have been able to do -- get up and out. Having the chance to sweep the streets of New York played a key role in my salvation. That, along with God's blessings, is why I'm now part of society, rather than ...

Third GOP debate elicits little excitement among voters By Ralph Z. Hallow THE WASHINGTON TIMES It will be a first tonight in Iowa when George W. Bush, John McCain, Steve Forbes, Gary Bauer, Alan Keyes and Orrin G. Hatch appear in the same room and can question each other in a Republican presidential nomination debate. Even so, pollsters and analysts aren’t sure how much such debates matter. “Four out of five voters are not watching the debates,” says John McLaughlin, campaign pollster for Steve Forbes, who is running second to Mr. Bush in Iowa polls. In their Dec. 2 New ...

Presidential ethics conference — 10 a.m. — Southeastern Legal Foundation holds a news conference to discuss developments in the group’s ethics complaint filed against President Clinton in the Arkansas Supreme Court that seeks his disbarment. Location: National Press Club, Edward Murrow Room, 529 14th St. NW. Contact: 800/536-5920.

Neal Knox Report Why Celebrate Brady? By Neal Knox   WASHINGTON, D.C. (Dec. 1)--Tonight is Handgun Control Inc.'s big night, celebrating with President Bill Clinton the sixth anniversary of his signing the Brady Law's, along with a bevy of Hollywood stars at a Beverly Hills fundraiser. (Reception tickets were $250 and you could have dinner with Bill for a $10,000 contribution to HCI.) The soiree coincided with the one year anniversary of the National Instant Check System (the NRA-devised second phase of Brady) which, Janet Reno said today, has prevented sales to 160,000 "felons, fugitives and others prohibited from ...

Bradley, McCain seen as close contenders By Bill Sammon THE WASHINGTON TIMES George W. Bush and Al Gore are light years ahead of their closest rivals in national polls but the media routinely portrays John McCain and Bill Bradley as having nearly as much chance of winning the presidential primaries. George W. Bush and Al Gore are light years ahead of their closest rivals in national polls but the media routinely portrays John McCain and Bill Bradley as having nearly as much chance of winning the presidential primaries. Although Mr. McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona, and Mr. Bradley, the ...

Republican presidential hopeful Alan Keyes is already working on his Cabinet, and apparently Larry Klayman is his choice for attorney general. “I think that we need to put someone in as attorney general who, among other things, will enforce the law and then get to the truth on behalf of the American people, and there’s nobody that has been doing that with greater courage and effectiveness — even without any kind of official position — than Larry Klayman,” Mr. Keyes said. Mr. Klayman and his group, Judicial Watch, have brought a series of legal cases against the Clinton administration. Mr. ...

Guests on this program were: Bill O'Reilly Cathy Ladman Michael Bolton Natalie Raitano[ Host is Bill Maher--Bill O'Reilly is Bill O] Bill: Okay. One of the big issues on the scene today now is the homeless, because in New York City, Rudy Giuliani, the mayor there, has some people saying has declared war on the homeless. What? Cathy: Just saying that, "declare war on the homeless." Can you pick a less qualified group to fight back? [ Laughter ] I mean, come on, these people don't have a home.[Brilliant!] Bill: But they are fighting back. They're demonstrating. It's amazing, but ...

Utah Sen. Robert F. Bennett reports he has heard fellow Republican senators say they would not want to have Sen. John McCain’s finger on the nuclear trigger. But Mr. Bennett denied that such remarks were part of a “whispering campaign” that Mr. McCain is mentally unstable. “I’m not sure I would want Al Gore’s finger on the nuclear trigger. . . . I would prefer George W. Bush’s,” Mr. Bennett said over the weekend on CNN’s “Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields.” Mr. Bennett added: “I think the most important attribute any president has to have is good instincts, much more ...

Forbes chooses life: Commitment to life is refreshingly strong By Bernadette Malone Connolly Some of our readers have questioned whether The Union Leader's endorsement of Steve Forbes means this page is moving leftward, away from key issues of importance to social conservatives — such as abortion. In fact, our endorsement of Forbes says just the opposite. In 1998, Forbes appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday news program and was asked by Tim Russert (host of our Jan. 6 GOP Presidential debate) whether Forbes would protect innocent human life or institute a flat tax if he were elected President. His ...

Bush aims to win NH — one vote at a time By JOHN DiSTASO, Senior Political Reporter Imagine you’re famous. It seems nearly everyone knows who you are just by looking at you. They want to meet you. They want to shake your hand. They run up to you, book in hand, seeking an autograph. You’re glad to oblige. You take the book with a proud smile and kind words. After all, you’re running for President. You look down, pen in hand, ready to sign. And it’s not your new book at all. It’s your mother’s. If you’re "Dubya" —Texas ...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The California publisher of a controversial book about the Oklahoma City bombing will destroy copies of the book as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by a former FBI official over false and inaccurate statements in the book. Stan Twardy, attorney for former FBI official Oliver "Buck" Revell, said Friday that the number of books being destroyed was not available but he described it as "substantial." The publisher said all books in its distributor's warehouse would be destroyed. Revell said David Hoffman's book, "The Oklahoma City Bombing and The Politics of Terror" contained false ...